Forgive me, but the point is NOT "most illegals/most immigrants". The point that when we do not control our border SOME illegals will be doing what we saw here and responsibility for that DOES fall on those who are not defending our borders. IMHO first and therefore foremost, that would include our current Commander in Chief.

Why exactly are the "illegals" responsible?"If initial police reports are accurate, Terry wasn't gunned down by the immigrants who travel the same dangerous paths as Border Patrol agents in search work north of the border, but by violent criminals who set out each day to profit from the misery of others."

Therefore what happened could have been done by violent legal immigrants or citizens. Yes? And almost anywhere inside our borders.

As you know in Los Angeles we have many "violent criminals"; most are here legally and/or are citizens. A violent death happens nearly everyday. Two LAPD Officers are killed in the line of duty every year; a much greater death rate than Border Patrol Agents. Is our Mayor to "rot in Hell" and I to be shamed because I voted for him?

As Commander in Chief, I agree, the buck stops on his desk, as does the deaths and blood of American's fighting our cause in Iraq and Afghanistan (which most American's 60%+ do not agree with). As well as the deaths of various Federal Agents including our Border Patrol fighting violent crime world wide. Is the Commander in Chief to "rot in hell" and and are those who voted for him to be shamed? I think not.

(a) Improper time or place; avoidance of examination or inspection;misrepresentation and concealment of factsAny alien who (1) enters or attempts to enter the United Statesat any time or place other than as designated by immigrationofficers, or (2) eludes examination or inspection by immigrationofficers, or (3) attempts to enter or obtains entry to the UnitedStates by a willfully false or misleading representation or thewillful concealment of a material fact, shall, for the firstcommission of any such offense, be fined under title 18 orimprisoned not more than 6 months, or both, and, for a subsequentcommission of any such offense, be fined under title 18, orimprisoned not more than 2 years, or both.

**Just being an illegal alien IS a crime, despite what some claim. Of course, most go on to commit additional crimes while here.

(a) Improper time or place; avoidance of examination or inspection;misrepresentation and concealment of factsAny alien who (1) enters or attempts to enter the United Statesat any time or place other than as designated by immigrationofficers, or (2) eludes examination or inspection by immigrationofficers, or (3) attempts to enter or obtains entry to the UnitedStates by a willfully false or misleading representation or thewillful concealment of a material fact, shall, for the firstcommission of any such offense, be fined under title 18 orimprisoned not more than 6 months, or both, and, for a subsequentcommission of any such offense, be fined under title 18, orimprisoned not more than 2 years, or both.

**Just being an illegal alien IS a crime, despite what some claim. Of course, most go on to commit additional crimes while here.

It is a crime. I have never liked "undocumented alien". What is this that a euphemism for "illegal" alien?Illegal means illegal.

That said, it is a crime; similar to smoking a joint is a crime. And a DUI's penalties here in CA are worse.

However I do not agree that "most go on to commit additional crimes while here."Do you have anything to back that wild statement?

But my purpose here was not to debate or defend illegal immigration. Just don't blame illegal immigrants for everything going wrong with our country.

For example you are a police officer. You see someone smoking a joint. You stop to arrest them and suddenly out of the bushes jumps the big bad dealer who shoots your partner dead. The meek guy with the joint is harmless; albeit illegal. He is just buying a jointand plans to go back to the office. He takes cover on the ground whimpering.

Now in the above scenario do you blame the guy who bought the joint? Probably..., a little. I would. But you probably really hatethe violent criminal who shot your partner. But do I think our President or our former President should "rot in hell" because they can't solve the drug problem? No.

There is a major difference from failing to solve the problem and rewarding those that break the law. See the "DREAM" act they are trying to ram through. Do you doubt that Obama will sign it if given the chance?

Illegal immigration imposes enormous costs -- monetary as well as crime-related -- on American society. As regards criminal activity, Manhattan Institute scholar Heather MacDonald describes one small slice of a much larger problem:

* In Los Angeles, 95 percent of all outstanding warrants for homicide target illegal aliens, as do approximately two-thirds of all fugitive felony warrants. * More than 60 percent of the Hispanic gangs in Southern California—whose membership is in the tens of thousands—is illegal. These gangs involved withdrug-distribution schemes, extortion, drive-by assassinations, assaults, and robberies.

In a 2006 study, Deborah Schurman-Kauflin of the Violent Crimes Institute in Atlanta estimated, conservatively, that from January 1999 through April 2006 approximately 240,000 illegal aliens had committed about 960,000 sex offenses in the United States.

The fiscal costs of illegal immigration are also very high. According to the Center for Immigration Studies, in 2002 illegal-alien households imposed, in aggregate, costs exceeding $26 billion on the federal government while they paid $16 billion in federal taxes -- thereby creating a net fiscal deficit of $10.4 billion per year at the federal level, or $2,700 per household. Among the largest components of this deficit were Medicaid ($2.5 billion); medical treatment for the uninsured ($2.2 billion); food-assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches ($1.9 billion); the federal prison and court systems ($1.6 billion); and federal aid to schools ($1.4 billion). A major reason why illegal aliens are, on balance, such a drain on the American Treasury is because approximately 60 percent of them lack a high-school degree.

The National Academy of Sciences has estimated that the average immigrant without a high-school degree will, over the course of his or her lifetime, impose a net cost -- above and beyond any taxes he or she pays -- of nearly $100,000 on U.S. taxpayers; this cost does not include the cost of educating the immigrant’s children. Based on that figure, the estimated 6 million legal immigrants lacking a high-school diploma and residing in the U.S. today, will cost taxpayers more than a half trillion dollars over their lifetimes. _________________________________________________________________________http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d02830t.pdf

IDENTITY FRAUDPrevalence and Links toAlien Illegal Activities

I am pleased to be here today to discuss the significance of “identityfraud”—a term that encompasses a broad range of illegal activities basedon fraudulent use of identifying information of a real person or of afictitious person. A pervasive type of identity fraud is identity theft, whichinvolves “stealing” another person’s personal identifying information—such as Social Security number (SSN), date of birth, and mother’s maidenname—and then using the information to fraudulently establish credit, runup debt, take over existing financial accounts, or to undertake otheractivities in another’s name. Also, another pervasive category is the use offraudulent identity documents by aliens to enter the United States illegallyto obtain employment and other benefits. The events of September 11,2001, have heightened concerns about the contributory role that identityfraud plays in facilitating terrorism and other serious crimes.In this statement, I make the following points:• The prevalence of identity theft appears to be growing. Moreover,identity theft is not typically a stand-alone crime; rather, identity theftis usually a component of one or more white-collar or financial crimes,such as bank fraud, credit card or access device fraud, or the use ofcounterfeit financial instruments. Since 1998, the Congress and moststates have enacted laws that criminalize identity theft. The passage offederal and state identity theft legislation indicates that this type ofcrime has been widely recognized as a serious problem across thenation.• According to Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) officials,the use of fraudulent documents by aliens is extensive. At ports ofentry, INS inspectors have intercepted tens of thousands of fraudulentdocuments in each of the last few years. These documents werepresented by aliens attempting to enter the United States to seekemployment or obtain other immigration benefits, such asnaturalization or permanent residency status. The types of falsedocuments most frequently intercepted by INS inspectors includeborder crossing cards, alien registration cards, nonimmigrant visas, andpassports and citizenship documents (both U.S. and foreign). Also, INShas reported that large-scale counterfeiting has made fraudulentemployment eligibility documents (e.g., Social Security cards) widelyavailable.Page 2 GAO-02-830T• Federal investigations have shown that some aliens use fraudulentdocuments in connection with more serious illegal activities, such asnarcotics trafficking and terrorism. This is a cause for greater concern.• Efforts to combat identity fraud in its many forms likely will commandcontinued attention from policymakers and law enforcement. Suchefforts will include investigating and prosecuting perpetrators, as wellas focusing on prevention measures to make key identificationdocuments and information less susceptible to being counterfeited orotherwise used fraudulently._______________________________________________________________http://redtape.msnbc.com/2006/03/hidden_cost_of_.html

In the noisy immigration debate raging in Washington, there is one voice NOT being heard.

The voice of identity theft victims.

Behind many of the nation’s millions of undocumented workers are someone else's documents. To get a job, illegal immigrants need a Social Security number, and they often borrow one. As victim Melody Millet is fond of saying, U.S. citizens are being forced to share their identities with undocumented immigrants to give corporate America a steady supply of cheap labor.

Singer and composer Debbie Friedman, one of the most important figures in contemporary Jewish music, died Sunday morning.The Jerusalem Post reported her death, citing sources with the Union for Reform Judaism.

Debbie Friedman

Rabbi Paul Kipnes of Congregation Or Ami in Calabasas wrote on Twitter: "I am saddened to inform you that Debbie Friedman died this morning at 5:49 a.m. PST. The family has asked for people to respect their time..."Jewish media outlets reported that Friedman had been in a medically induced coma at an Orange County hospital, which was not identified."She is the voice of the Jewish people of the 20th century," said Yaffa Weisman, a member of the faculty and director of the library at Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles, where Friedman also taught. "Her music has transformed the world of Jewish prayer."Weisman, who said Friedman moved to Orange County about a year ago to be closer to her family, is the one composer whose songs are known by almost all Conservative or Reform Jews in the United States. As an example she described a Sabbath service she conducted for a small group on the coast of Alaska about 15 years ago."Forty people came to the services from all over the United States," Weisman said. "The only music that we all knew was Debbie Friedman's music, and I'm sure my story is not unique in that way."Friedman, who was in her late 50s, took the accessibility and contemporary elements of the '60s folk movement and blended them with traditional melodies and prayers, had released more than 20 albums and performed throughout the world. The New York Times once wrote that Friedman "has created a powerful and euphoric body of work." The Los Angeles Times called her "one of the foremost figures in contemporary Jewish music."A healing service previously scheduled for 5 p.m. PST in New York, will now be a memorial service. The service can be seen at www.ustream.tv/channel/service-at-the-jcc or jccmanhattan.org/livestream.Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, called Friedman one of the most influential voices in Reform Judaism."Twenty-five years ago, North American Jews had forgotten how to sing," Yoffie said in an announcement. "Debbie reminded us how to sing, she taught us how to sing. She gave us the vehicles that enabled us to sing. What happens in the synagogues of Reform Judaism today – the voices of song – are in large measure due to the insight, brilliance and influence of Debbie Friedman."Memories and condolences were offered on a Facebook tribute page."Debbie Friedman, may your music and memory live on forever," one person wrote. "You will be missed.""May her memory and music be a blessing for all; and may we all continue singing the songs," wrote anoth

Feb. 20, 1980: Jack LaLanne pumps iron in the gym in his home in Hollywood, Calif.

LOS ANGELES -- Jack LaLanne, the fitness guru who inspired television viewers to trim down, eat well and pump iron for decades before diet and exercise became a national obsession, died Sunday. He was 96. LaLanne died of respiratory failure due to pneumonia Sunday afternoon at his home in Morro Bay on California's central coast, his longtime agent Rick Hersh said.

LaLanne ate healthy and exercised every day of his life up until the end, Hersh said.

"I have not only lost my husband and a great American icon, but the best friend and most loving partner anyone could ever hope for," Elaine LaLanne, LaLanne's wife of 51 years and a frequent partner in his television appearances, said in a written statement.

He maintained a youthful physique and joked in 2006 that "I can't afford to die. It would wreck my image."

"He never lost enthusiasm for life and physical fitness," the 87-year-old Barker told The Associated Press on Sunday. "I saw him in about 2007 and he still looked remarkably good. He still looked like the same enthusiastic guy that he always was."

LaLanne (pronounced lah-LAYN') credited a sudden interest in fitness with transforming his life as a teen, and he worked tirelessly over the next eight decades to transform others' lives, too.

"The only way you can hurt the body is not use it," LaLanne said. "Inactivity is the killer and, remember, it's never too late."

His workout show was a television staple from the 1950s to the '70s. LaLanne and his dog Happy encouraged kids to wake their mothers and drag them in front of the television set. He developed exercises that used no special equipment, just a chair and a towel.

He also founded a chain of fitness studios that bore his name and in recent years touted the value of raw fruit and vegetables as he helped market a machine called Jack LaLanne's Power Juicer.

When he turned 43 in 1957, he performed more than 1,000 push-ups in 23 minutes on the "You Asked For It" television show. At 60, he swam from Alcatraz Island to Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco -- handcuffed, shackled and towing a boat. Ten years later, he performed a similar feat in Long Beach harbor.

"I never think of my age, never," LaLanne said in 1990. "I could be 20 or 100. I never think about it, I'm just me. Look at Bob Hope, George Burns. They're more productive than they've ever been in their whole lives right now."

Fellow bodybuilder and former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger credited LaLanne with taking exercise out of the gymnasium and into living rooms.

"He laid the groundwork for others to have exercise programs, and now it has bloomed from that black and white program into a very colorful enterprise," Schwarzenegger said in 1990.

In 1936 in his native Oakland, LaLanne opened a health studio that included weight-training for women and athletes. Those were revolutionary notions at the time, because of the theory that weight training made an athlete slow and "muscle bound" and made a woman look masculine.

"You have to understand that it was absolutely forbidden in those days for athletes to use weights," he once said. "It just wasn't done. We had athletes who used to sneak into the studio to work out. It was the same with women. Back then, women weren't supposed to use weights. I guess I was a pioneer," LaLanne said.

The son of poor French immigrants, he was born in 1914 and grew up to become a sugar addict, he said. The turning point occurred one night when he heard a lecture by pioneering nutritionist Paul Bragg, who advocated the benefits of brown rice, whole wheat and a vegetarian diet.

"He got me so enthused," LaLanne said. "After the lecture I went to his dressing room and spent an hour and a half with him. He said, 'Jack, you're a walking garbage can."'

Soon after, LaLanne constructed a makeshift gym in his back yard. "I had all these firemen and police working out there and I kind of used them as guinea pigs," he said.

He said his own daily routine usually consisted of two hours of weightlifting and an hour in the swimming pool.

"It's a lifestyle, it's something you do the rest of your life," LaLanne said. "How long are you going to keep breathing? How long do you keep eating? You just do it."

In addition to his wife, he is survived by two sons, Dan and Jon, and a daughter, Yvonne.

Gents.... I'm moved by this. I recall him in the same way that I recall Bruno Sanmartino and the early "studio" wrestlers. Sort of off the radar but never-the-less had a place of inspiration in my soul. In terms of accessibility and visibility he definitely changed things and made his mark. Nice to recall and give credit where it is truly due.

Sifu Mark Gerry wrote:"It is with great sadness that I must report Professor Wally Jay has passed away after suffering from a stroke. He has touched the world and will be sorely missed by everyone. May God strengthen his family to endure such a loss as we all thank God for him having been born."

"A good stickgrappler has good stick skills, good grappling, and good stickgrappling and can keep track of all three simultaneously. This is a good trick and can be quite effective." - Marc "Crafty Dog" Denny

It is so hard for me to believe that it was 20 years ago that I began my journey with you into the world of the Filipino Martial Arts. Though now I walk the journey without you, I know that you are the reason I have never swayed from the path, that I continue to find joy in the beauty of this movement and that I will love the art until my final day. I've always felt your guidance, your presence and your love on every step, and I continue to feel you in my heart and at my side, protecting me and leading me through my trials and growth. All my thanks and all my love, Datu, you are the reason I am the Poi Dog.

Joe Frazier, the former heavyweight champion whose furious and intensely personal fights with a taunting Muhammad Ali endure as an epic rivalry in boxing history, died Monday night at his home in Philadelphia. He was 67.

His business representative, Leslie Wolff, said the cause was liver cancer. An announcement over the weekend that Frazier had received the diagnosis in late September and had been moved to hospice care early this month prompted an outpouring of tributes and messages of support.

Known as Smokin’ Joe, Frazier stalked his opponents around the ring with a crouching, relentless attack — his head low and bobbing, his broad, powerful shoulders hunched — as he bore down on them with an onslaught of withering jabs and crushing body blows, setting them up for his devastating left hook.

It was an overpowering modus operandi that led to versions of the heavyweight crown from 1968 to 1973. Frazier won 32 fights in all, 27 by knockouts, losing four times — twice to Ali in furious bouts and twice to George Foreman. He also recorded one draw.

A slugger who weathered repeated blows to the head while he delivered punishment, Frazier proved a formidable figure. But his career was defined by his rivalry with Ali, who ridiculed him as a black man in the guise of a Great White Hope. Frazier detested him.

Ali vs. Frazier was a study in contrasts. Ali: tall and handsome, a wit given to spouting poetry, a magnetic figure who drew adulation and denigration alike, the one for his prowess and outsize personality, the other for his antiwar views and Black Power embrace of Islam. Frazier: a bull-like man of few words with a blue-collar image and a glowering visage who in so many ways could be on an equal footing with his rival only in the ring.

Ali proclaimed, “I am the greatest” and he preened how he could “float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.” Frazier had no inclination for oratorical bravado. “Work is the only meanin’ I’ve ever known,” he told Playboy in 1973. “Like the man in the song says, I just gotta keep on keepin’ on.”

Frazier won the undisputed heavyweight title with a 15-round decision over Ali at Madison Square Garden in March 1971, in an extravaganza known as the Fight of the Century. Ali scored a 12-round decision over Frazier at the Garden in a nontitle bout in January 1974. Then came the Thrilla in Manila championship bout, in October 1975, regarded as one of the greatest fights in boxing history. It ended when a battered Frazier, one eye swollen shut, did not come out to face Ali for the 15th round.

The Ali-Frazier battles played out at a time when the heavyweight boxing champion was far more celebrated than he is today, a figure who could stand alone in the spotlight a decade before an alphabet soup of boxing sanctioning bodies arose, making it difficult for the average fan to figure out just who held what title.

The rivalry was also given a political and social cast. Many viewed the Ali-Frazier matches as a snapshot of the struggles of the 1960s. Ali, an adherent of the Nation of Islam who had changed his name from Cassius Clay, came to represent rising black anger in America and opposition to the Vietnam War. Frazier voiced no political views, but he was nonetheless depicted, to his consternation, as the favorite of the establishment. Ali called him ignorant, likened him to a gorilla and said his black supporters were Uncle Toms.

“Frazier had become the white man’s fighter, Mr. Charley was rooting for Frazier, and that meant blacks were boycotting him in their heart,” Norman Mailer wrote in Life magazine after the first Ali-Frazier bout.

Frazier, wrote Mailer, was “twice as black as Clay and half as handsome,” with “the rugged decent life-worked face of a man who had labored in the pits all his life.”

Frazier could never match Ali’s charisma or his gift for the provocative quote. He was essentially a man devoted to a brutal craft, willing to give countless hours to his spartan training-camp routine and unsparing of his body inside the ring.

“The way I fight, it’s not me beatin’ the man: I make the man whip himself,” Frazier told Playboy. “Because I stay close to him. He can’t get out the way.” He added: “Before he knows it — whew! — he’s tired. And he can’t pick up his second wind because I’m right back on him again.”

In his autobiography, “Smokin’ Joe,” written with Phil Berger, Frazier said his first trainer, Yank Durham, had given him his nickname. It was, he said, “a name that had come from what Yank used to say in the dressing room before sending me out to fight: ‘Go out there, goddammit, and make smoke come from those gloves.’ “

Foreman knocked out Frazier twice but said he had never lost his respect for him. “Joe Frazier would come out smoking,” Foreman told ESPN. “If you hit him, he liked it. If you knocked him down, you only made him mad.”

Durham said he saw a fire always smoldering in Frazier. “I’ve had plenty of other boxers with more raw talent,” he told The New York Times Magazine in 1970, “but none with more dedication and strength.”

Ali himself was conciliatory when Frazier’s battle with cancer became publicly known. “My family and I are keeping Joe and his family in our daily prayers,” Ali said in his statement over the weekend. “Joe has a lot of friends pulling for him, and I’m one of them.”

And when word reached him that Frazier had died, Ali, in another statement, said: “The world has lost a great champion. I will always remember Joe with respect and admiration.”

Billy Joe Frazier was born on Jan. 12, 1944, in Laurel Bay, S.C., the youngest of 12 children. His father, Rubin, and his mother, Dolly, worked in the fields, and the youngster known as Billy Boy dropped out of school at 13. He dreamed of becoming a boxing champion, throwing his first punches at burlap sacks he stuffed with moss and leaves, pretending to be Joe Louis or Ezzard Charles or Archie Moore.

At 15, Frazier went to New York to live with a brother. A year later he moved to Philadelphia, taking a job in a slaughterhouse. At times he battered sides of beef, using them as a punching bag to work out, the kind of scene used by Slyvester Stallone in the film “Rocky,” though Stallone said that he drew on the life of the heavyweight contender Chuck Wepner in developing the Rocky character.

Durham discovered Frazier boxing to lose weight at a Police Athletic League gym in Philadelphia. Under Durham’s guidance, Frazier captured a Golden Gloves championship and won the heavyweight gold medal at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.

He turned pro in August 1965, with financial backing from businessmen calling themselves the Cloverlay Group (from cloverleaf, for good luck, and overlay, a betting term signifying good odds). He won his first 11 bouts by knockouts. By winter 1968, his record was 21-0.

A year before Frazier’s pro debut, Cassius Clay won the heavyweight championship in a huge upset of Sonny Liston. Soon afterward, affirming his rumored membership in the Nation of Islam, he became Muhammad Ali. In April 1967, having proclaimed, “I ain’t got nothing against them Vietcong,” Ali refused to be drafted, claiming conscientious objector status. Boxing commissions stripped him of his title, and he was convicted of evading the draft.

An eight-man elimination tournament was held to determine a World Boxing Association champion to replace Ali. Frazier refused to participate when his financial backers objected to the contract terms for the tournament, and Jimmy Ellis took the crown.

But in March 1968, Frazier won the version of the heavyweight title recognized by New York and a few other states, defeating Buster Mathis with an 11th-round technical knockout. He took the W.B.A. title in February 1970, stopping Ellis, who did not come out for the fifth round.

In the summer of 1970, Ali won a court battle to regain his boxing license, then knocked out the contenders Jerry Quarry and Oscar Bonavena. The stage was set for an Ali-Frazier showdown, a matchup of unbeaten fighters, on March 8, 1971, at Madison Square Garden.

Each man was guaranteed $2.5 million, the biggest boxing payday ever. Frank Sinatra was at ringside taking photos for Life magazine. The former heavyweight champion Joe Louis received a huge ovation. Hubert H. Humphrey, back in the Senate after serving as vice president, sat two rows in front of the Irish political activist Bernadette Devlin, who shouted, “Ali, Ali,” her left fist held high. An estimated 300 million watched on television worldwide, and the gate of $1.35 million set a record for an indoor bout.

Frazier, at 5 feet 11 1/2 inches and 205 pounds, gave up three inches in height and nearly seven inches in reach to Ali, but he was a 6-to-5 betting favorite. Just before the fighters received their instructions from the referee, Ali, displaying his arrogance of old, twice touched Frazier’s shoulders as he whirled around the ring. Frazier just glared at him.

Frazier wore Ali down with blows to the body while moving underneath Ali’s jabs. In the 15th round, Frazier unleashed his famed left hook, catching Ali on the jaw and flooring him for a count of 4, only the third time Ali had been knocked down. Ali held on, but Frazier won a unanimous decision.

Frazier declared, “I always knew who the champ was.”

Frazier continued to bristle over Ali’s taunting. “I’ve seen pictures of him in cars with white guys, huggin’ ‘em and havin’ fun,” Frazier told Sport magazine two months after the fight. “Then he go call me an Uncle Tom. Don’t say, ‘I hate the white man,’ then go to the white man for help.”

For Frazier, 1971 was truly triumphant. He bought a 368-acre estate called Brewton Plantation near his boyhood home and became the first black man since Reconstruction to address the South Carolina Legislature. Ali gained vindication in June 1971 when the United States Supreme Court overturned his conviction for draft evasion.

Frazier defended his title against two journeymen, Terry Daniels and Ron Stander, but Foreman took his championship away on Jan. 22, 1973, knocking him down six times in their bout in Kingston, Jamaica, before the referee stopped the fight in the second round.

Frazier met Ali again in a nontitle bout at the Garden on Jan. 28, 1974. Frazier kept boring in and complained that Ali was holding in the clinches, but Ali scored with flurries of punches and won a unanimous 12-round decision.

Ali won back the heavyweight title in October 1974, knocking out Foreman in Kinshasa, Zaire — the celebrated Rumble in the Jungle. Frazier went on to knock out Quarry and Ellis, setting up his third match, and second title fight, with Ali: the Thrilla in Manila, on Oct. 1, 1975.

In what became the most brutal Ali-Frazier battle, the fight was held at the Philippine Coliseum at Quezon City, outside the country’s capital, Manila. The conditions were sweltering, with hot lights overpowering the air-conditioning.

Ali, almost a 2-to-1 betting favorite in the United States, won the early rounds, largely remaining flat-footed in place of his familiar dancing style. Before Round 3 he blew kisses to President Ferdinand Marcos and his wife, Imelda, in the crowd of about 25,000.

But in the fourth round, Ali’s pace slowed while Frazier began to gain momentum. Chants of “Frazier, Frazier” filled the arena by the fifth round, and the crowd seemed to favor him as the fight moved along, a contrast to Ali’s usually enjoying the fans’ plaudits.

Frazier took command in the middle rounds. Then Ali came back on weary legs, unleashing a flurry of punches to Frazier’s face in the 12th round. He knocked out Frazier’s mouthpiece in the 13th round, then sent him stumbling backward with a straight right hand.

Ali jolted Frazier with left-right combinations late in the 14th round. Frazier had already lost most of the vision in his left eye from a cataract, and his right eye was puffed and shut from Ali’s blows.

Eddie Futch, a renowned trainer working Frazier’s corner, asked the referee to end the bout. When it was stopped, Ali was ahead on the scorecards of the referee and two judges. “It’s the closest I’ve come to death,” Ali said.

Frazier returned to the ring nine months later, in June 1976, to face Foreman at Nassau Coliseum on Long Island. Foreman stopped him on a technical knockout in the fifth round. Frazier then announced his retirement. He was 32.

He later managed his eldest son, Marvis, a heavyweight. In December 1981 he returned to the ring to fight a journeyman named Jumbo Cummings, fought to a draw, then retired for good, tending to investments from his home in Philadelphia.

Both Frazier and Ali had daughters who took up boxing, and in June 2001 it was Ali-Frazier IV when Frazier’s daughter Jacqui Frazier-Lyde fought Ali’s daughter Laila Ali at a casino in Vernon, N.Y. Like their fathers in their first fight, both were unbeaten. Laila Ali won on a decision. Joe Frazier was in the crowd of 6,500, but Muhammad Ali, impaired by Parkinson’s syndrome, was not.

In addition to his son Marvis and his daughter Jacqui, Frazier is survived by his sons Hector, Joseph Rubin, Joseph Jordan, Brandon Marcus and Derek Dennis; his daughters Weatta, Jo-Netta, Renae and Natasha, and a sister. His marriage to his wife, Florence, ended in divorce.

Long after his fighting days were over, Frazier retained his enmity for Ali. But in March 2001, the 30th anniversary of the first Ali-Frazier bout, Ali told The New York Times: “I said a lot of things in the heat of the moment that I shouldn’t have said. Called him names I shouldn’t have called him. I apologize for that. I’m sorry. It was all meant to promote the fight.”

Asked for a response, Frazier said: “We have to embrace each other. It’s time to talk and get together. Life’s too short.”

Fascination with the Ali-Frazier saga has endured.

After a 2008 presidential debate between Barack Obama and John McCain, the Republican media consultant Stuart Stevens said that McCain should concentrate on selling himself to America rather than criticizing Obama. Stevens’s prescription: “More Ali and less Joe Frazier.”

Frazier’s true feelings toward Ali in his final years seemed murky.

The 2009 British documentary “Thrilla in Manila,” shown in the United States on HBO, depicted Frazier watching a film of the fight from his apartment above the gym he ran in Philadelphia.

“He’s a good-time guy,” John Dower, the director of “Thrilla in Manila,” told The Times. “But he’s angry about Ali.”

In March 2011, however, on the eve of the 40th anniversary of the first Ali-Frazier fight, Frazier said he was willing to put the enmity behind him.

“I forgave him for all the accusations he made over the years,” The Daily News quoted Frazier as saying. “I hope he’s doing fine. I’d love to see him.”

But as Frazier once told The Times: “Ali always said I would be nothing without him. But who would he have been without me?”

« Last Edit: November 08, 2011, 09:53:02 PM by Stickgrappler »

Logged

"A good stickgrappler has good stick skills, good grappling, and good stickgrappling and can keep track of all three simultaneously. This is a good trick and can be quite effective." - Marc "Crafty Dog" Denny

http://durangoherald.com/article/20120203/NEWS01/702029898/-1/News01/Sheriff’s-deputy-dies-snowmobilingSheriff’s deputy dies snowmobilingHolland suffered heart attack on Molas PassBy Shane BenjaminHerald Staff WriterArticle Last Updated: Thursday, February 02, 2012 9:25pmKeywords: San Juan County, La Plata County Search and Rescue, • A longtime employee of the La Plata County Sheriff’s Office died of a heart attack Wednesday while snowmobiling southeast of Molas Pass, at about 10,500 feet in elevation.Hollis Holland, 57, was reported missing Wednesday evening by his wife, Patricia. His snowmobile and body were found about 8:30 p.m. by an Air Care medical helicopter based in Farmington.He had no vital signs and no apparent injuries, said Dan Bender, spokesman with the La Plata County Sheriff’s Office.“My understanding is it wasn’t something involving an avalanche,” Bender said.Holland began working part-time for the La Plata County Sheriff’s Office in 1991 and became a full-time deputy in 1992.He received numerous honors, including two merit badge awards: one in 2002 for leading an investigation that resulted in the arrest of a woman who was intentionally starting fires during the Missionary Ridge Fire, and another in 2010 after rescuing a woman who was inside a burning house.Holland and his wife moved to the area in the 1970s. He worked in a Silverton mine, led the San Juan County Search & Rescue team for 10 years and was an active member of the Silverton Avalanche School in the 1980s.He helped start the deputy-ski program at Purgatory ski area, which put deputies on the slopes to improve security and response times at the mountain.He also worked part-time for the San Juan County Sheriff’s Office in Silverton.Holland was off-duty Wednesday when he went snowmobiling south of Silverton in the area of Molas Pass, Bender said.He told his wife where he was going and when he expected to return. When he failed to return as planned, his wife reported him overdue.His body was found Wednesday night near his snowmobile southeast of the summit of Molas Pass.The medical helicopter was equipped with night vision and communicated his location to ground crews.“The ground teams succeeded in a difficult recovery just as a major snowstorm moved into the area,” Bender said. “Without the search teams’ timely actions, the family could have been faced with an extended time of not knowing where their loved one was or what his fate was.”Other agencies participating in the search included the San Juan County Sheriff’s Office, Silverton Snowmobile Club and search-and-rescue teams from La Plata and San Juan counties.“We greatly appreciate all of their assistance,” said Kristine Burns, undersheriff with the San Juan County Sheriff’s Office.Bender, who has known Holland since the 1980s, said Holland played Santa Claus and liked to laugh.“(I) don’t ever recall being with him without hearing him laugh at least once,” Bender said. “He is missed.”Deputies with the La Plata County Sheriff’s Office and officers with the Durango Police Department will wear shrouds on their badges for the next seven days in remembrance of Holland.In addition to his wife, he had two adult sons and two grandchildren.Memorial services have not yet been announced.Burial is expected to occur in Silverton when weather conditions allow.shane@durangoherald.comA longtime employee of the La Plata County Sheriff’s Office died of a heart attack Wednesday while snowmobiling southeast of Molas Pass, at about 10,500 feet in elevation. Enlargephoto HollandHollis Holland, 57, was reported missing Wednesday evening by his wife, Patricia. His snowmobile and body were found about 8:30 p.m. by an Air Care medical helicopter based in Farmington.He had no vital signs and no apparent injuries, said Dan Bender, spokesman with the La Plata County Sheriff’s Office.“My understanding is it wasn’t something involving an avalanche,” Bender said.Holland began working part-time for the La Plata County Sheriff’s Office in 1991 and became a full-time deputy in 1992.He received numerous honors, including two merit badge awards: one in 2002 for leading an investigation that resulted in the arrest of a woman who was intentionally starting fires during the Missionary Ridge Fire, and another in 2010 after rescuing a woman who was inside a burning house.Holland and his wife moved to the area in the 1970s. He worked in a Silverton mine, led the San Juan County Search & Rescue team for 10 years and was an active member of the Silverton Avalanche School in the 1980s.He helped start the deputy-ski program at Purgatory ski area, which put deputies on the slopes to improve security and response times at the mountain.He also worked part-time for the San Juan County Sheriff’s Office in Silverton.Holland was off-duty Wednesday when he went snowmobiling south of Silverton in the area of Molas Pass, Bender said.He told his wife where he was going and when he expected to return. When he failed to return as planned, his wife reported him overdue.His body was found Wednesday night near his snowmobile southeast of the summit of Molas Pass.The medical helicopter was equipped with night vision and communicated his location to ground crews.“The ground teams succeeded in a difficult recovery just as a major snowstorm moved into the area,” Bender said. “Without the search teams’ timely actions, the family could have been faced with an extended time of not knowing where their loved one was or what his fate was.”Other agencies participating in the search included the San Juan County Sheriff’s Office, Silverton Snowmobile Club and search-and-rescue teams from La Plata and San Juan counties.“We greatly appreciate all of their assistance,” said Kristine Burns, undersheriff with the San Juan County Sheriff’s Office.Bender, who has known Holland since the 1980s, said Holland played Santa Claus and liked to laugh.“(I) don’t ever recall being with him without hearing him laugh at least once,” Bender said. “He is missed.”Deputies with the La Plata County Sheriff’s Office and officers with the Durango Police Department will wear shrouds on their badges for the next seven days in remembrance of Holland.In addition to his wife, he had two adult sons and two grandchildren.Memorial services have not yet been announced.Burial is expected to occur in Silverton when weather conditions allow.shane@durangoherald.com

Jesse Glover, the first student of martial arts legend Bruce Lee, died on Wednesday at age 77 after a battle with cancer, according to close friend and past student Steve Smith.

Glover, a lifelong Seattlite, used what he learned from Lee and his days as a judo champion to become a prominent leader in the martial arts community himself. While developing a method called non-classical Gung Fu, he worked as a private martial arts trainer in Seattle and eventually taught across the nation and as far as Germany, according to Glover’s training website.

Lee and Glover met in 1959 while attending Edison Technical School, now Seattle Central Community College. Glover had already seen Lee demonstrate Gung Fu on stage when he ran into him on campus and asked to be his first student. They became good friends and trained together for four years.

I read his "History of Warfare" and found it quite erudite and insightful.

John Keegan 1934-2012 A Scholar of Soldiers in Battle By STEPHEN MILLER

John Keegan was among the pre-eminent historians of war. His many books brought new perspectives to bear on armed conflict from ancient times up to the Iraq war.

Readers flocked to his work, starting with "The Face of Battle," his 1976 best-seller that focused attention on what it was like to be in a battle rather than on generals and their strategies.

His death on Thursday at age 78 was announced by The Daily Telegraph, the London newspaper where he served as defense editor.

Mr. Keegan was for many years a lecturer at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and over the decades counted many of Britain's future military leaders among his students.

He joined the Telegraph in 1986, in time to cover the breakup of the Soviet Union and later conflicts that the British became involved in, from the Balkans to the Persian Gulf War to the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

But it was his histories that made the deepest impression on American readers.

In "A History of Warfare" Mr. Keegan presented swaths of military history, reaching back to prehistoric times to put war in cultural context. Controversially, he rejected Clausewitz's dictum that war is politics by other means, insisting that war is even more integral to civilization.

With "Fields of Battle" Mr. Keegan narrowed his focus slightly, to North America, with special attention to how the continent's landscapes have shaped warfare there.

"It is not accidental that Champlain, the founder of French Canada, was a skilled mapmaker or that George Washington, the victor of the War of American Independence, was by profession a surveyor who had recorded the topography of wide areas of the back country over which he was later to campaign," Mr. Keegan wrote.

He also produced histories of the First and Second World Wars and the American Civil War, as well as "The Mask of Command," about how leaders from Alexander the Great to Ulysses S. Grant to Hitler managed to inspire the men under their command.

Though born in London, Mr. Keegan was evacuated for the duration of World War II and had little direct experience of hostilities. A persistent case of tuberculosis kept him bed-bound for most of his teens, an experience he credited with encouraging a scholarly disposition. He studied military history at Balliol College at Oxford University.

In 1960, Mr. Keegan was hired at Sandhurst, where he began his research into the battlefield experiences of soldiers. "The Face of Battle" described how British soldiers acted in three important battles: Agincourt, Waterloo and the Somme. Drunkenness, mayhem and earsplitting noise were rampant, he found. This was military history in a new key.

Deemed a classic, the book and highlighted more than once in The Wall Street Journal's weekly "Five Best" book feature,is still in print more than three decades later.

Mr. Keegan followed up on the same theme in "Soldiers: A History of Men in Battle," a 1985 companion to a BBC television series.

Mr. Keegan described himself as "95 per cent pacifist," but thought war was inevitable.

"I don't think you can run this wicked world without armed force," he told the Los Angeles Times in 1990.

This is a major loss. Not only from the history of warfare, but also the history of warfare strategy. There is a major and important difference, and his contribution to second area may not be equaled again.

"A good stickgrappler has good stick skills, good grappling, and good stickgrappling and can keep track of all three simultaneously. This is a good trick and can be quite effective." - Marc "Crafty Dog" Denny

Hall of fame boxing trainer Emanuel Steward, who directed the careers of several champion fighters including Thomas Hearns, Lennox Lewis and current heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko, has died.

Steward’s executive assistant, Victoria Kirton, reported the trainer’s death at a Chicago hospital to the Associated Press on Thursday afternoon. Steward’s family has not identified a cause of death.

The personable Steward, 68, was one of his sport’s greatest resources of information, and served as an analyst on HBO’s most significant fights since 2001.

According to the boxing statistician company CompuBox, Steward trained 41 world champions, and his heavyweights accumulated a remarkable record of 34-2-1 in title fights.

“The depth of his knowledge was unsurpassed,” said HBO’s lead boxing announcer, Jim Lampley. “He was just as involved in amateur boxing as he was professional, so almost every time we’d start covering an American fighter, Emanuel had seen him at the start.”

HBO Sports President Ken Hershman said the network feels an “enormous degree of sadness and loss.”

“For more than a decade, Manny was a respected colleague who taught us so much not only about the sweet science but also about friendship and loyalty. His energy, enthusiasm and bright smile were a constant presence. Ten bells do not seem enough to mourn his passing. His contributions to the sport and to HBO will never be forgotten."

Steward’s reach to boxing stretched to the mid-1950s, after he left his hometown of Bottom Creek, W.Va., following the death of his father.

“To get out of the coal-mining lifestyle,” Lampley said. “His father died in his 40s from the sheer physical beatdown of mining.”

Steward moved to Detroit, where he worked on auto industry assembly lines as a teenager and trained as a fighter at the city’s Brewster Recreation Center, where former heavyweight champion Joe Louis worked out and legendary Eddie Futch trained.

Steward was a Golden Gloves champion, but his family’s need for financial support led him to sacrifice a professional career for work as an electrical lineman.As a trainer, Steward presided over a “168-hours-a-week” program in which he’d often sleep in the same room and share meals with his fighters, then train, watch film and engage in “talking, talking, talking,” Lampley said.

“If you had any personal difficulty with him, you couldn’t work with him, because you had to be in his life,” Lampley said. “Those guys loved him … Emanuel knew, with the deep personal bond, the learning curve goes up.”

I always find the part of the Academy Awards where they review those who have passed in the preceding year to be my favorite part- not in any morbid sense but because of the memories of great movies and performances that are always triggered by those montages. It seems in 2012 we lost some notable figures. This year-end montage from Yahoo news is done pretty well I think. Here's to those we lost in 2012.

James Gandolfini played the hulking and violent, yet neurotic and vulnerable embodiment of Mafia bravado for the 21st century as the namesake of HBO's landmark series "The Sopranos." Mr. Gandolfini died unexpectedly at age 51 while on holiday in Rome, his managers said.

"The Sopranos," debuting in 1999, is widely credited with helping to begin an era of high-quality dramas on cable television. It was also the program that made Time Warner Inc.'s TWX -1.78% HBO a powerhouse in prestige programming, a position that it enjoys to this day.

Playing a mafia boss in therapy to deal with panic attacks, Mr. Gandolfini created a celebrated role that put a new spin on a show-business chestnut. A traditionalist in a world where the mob no longer wielded the clout it did when he was growing up, the character didn't receive absolute respect in his home either.

"He is one of the greatest actors of this or any time," David Chase, creator of the Sopranos, said in a statement. "A great deal of that genius resided in those sad eyes."

His ability to capture Tony Soprano's many layers earned Mr. Gandolfini three Primetime Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe in addition to several more nominations. At the height of his "Sopranos" fame, Mr. Gandolfini appeared in mainstream Hollywoodfilms such as "The Mexican" with Julia Roberts, "Surviving Christmas" with Ben Affleck and "The Last Castle" opposite Robert Redford. More recently, he focused on darker roles in independently financed movies such as "Zero Dark Thirty" and "Welcome to the Rileys." He recently starred in the pilot for a new HBO series, "Criminal Justice," playing an attorney.

Of Italian heritage on both sides, Mr. Gandolfini grew up in a blue-collar home in the New Jersey suburbs of New York City. He studied communications at Rutgers University, andworked as a bouncer at Manhattan clubs before taking classes at the Actors Studio.

James Gandolfini, the star of "The Sopranos," has died at the age of 51. Watch some moments of Gandolfini as Tony Soprano over the course of the show's run. (Photo/Video: HBO)

Early in his acting career, Mr. Gandolfini played Steve Hubbell in a 1992 Broadway production of "A Streetcar Named Desire," with Alec Baldwin and Jessica Lange. In 1995 he played Charley Malloy in "On the Waterfront." He returned to Broadway in 2009, after "The Sopranos," in the Tony-winning play "God of Carnage." In an interview that year with The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Gandolfini said it was a nice change of pace: "['The Sopranos'] got pretty dark at the end there."

Asked what he would be doing if he weren't an actor, Mr. Gandolfini, who had spent spells in rehab, said, "Probably drinking."

In 2012, Mr. Gandolfini portrayed another Mafia character, a hard-drinking, whoring hit-man, in "Killing Them Softly." Of that film, he said, "It is a different kind of gangster movie, one that I found more appealing," he said. "Because God knows you've seen the other kind a million times."

==================

I feel I would be less than candid to fail to note that Glenn Beck once reported that JG was a really rude dick to him in front of his (GB's) young son at some Broadway show.

"A good stickgrappler has good stick skills, good grappling, and good stickgrappling and can keep track of all three simultaneously. This is a good trick and can be quite effective." - Marc "Crafty Dog" Denny

My sincerest condolences to the loved ones, friends, associates and students of Jim Kelly.

He is in Heaven now training with Bruce Lee.

RIP Jim Kelly

Logged

"A good stickgrappler has good stick skills, good grappling, and good stickgrappling and can keep track of all three simultaneously. This is a good trick and can be quite effective." - Marc "Crafty Dog" Denny

"A good stickgrappler has good stick skills, good grappling, and good stickgrappling and can keep track of all three simultaneously. This is a good trick and can be quite effective." - Marc "Crafty Dog" Denny

I met him briefly one time in Palm Springs when I was the assistant stage manager for some championship fights (Donald Curry and Meldrick Taylor were on the card, George Foreman was color commentator). He still had the amazing build-- he seemed huge.

1) I realized I had no game for that distance that would compare to his;2) I understood the value of what he was teaching in a way that I had not;3) I sought to create space to where I felt comfortable; and4) He took me in less than one second.